Palestinian bomb rocks Jerusalem

Associated Press

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian woman on Sunday became the first female on record to launch a bomb attack against Israel, killing herself and an 81-year-old Israeli man and wounding at least a dozen people on a busy Jerusalem street.

Israeli police said they were not sure if the woman intended to kill herself or if the bomb exploded prematurely as she walked along Jaffa Street, the main commercial strip in west Jerusalem.

A Lebanon television station identified the bomber as Shinaz Amuri, a student at Al-Najah University in the West Bank town of Nablus.

Israel accused Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat of "encouraging terrorism" and said it was prepared to respond to the bombing, the third major attack in an Israeli city in a week.

The blast next to a shoe shop blew out shop windows, set a store on fire and left victims sprawled on the pavement amid shards of glass, pieces of fruit, shoes and storefront mannequins.

"It sounded like half the street exploded," said Hama Gidon, a clothing store worker who was slightly injured. "All the mannequins went flying and I did too. People were falling, glass was flying everywhere."

More than 100 people were treated on the spot or taken to hospitals, though most suffered only from shock. Three people were seriously hurt and nine had moderate injuries, officials said.

The attack came two days after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed himself and wounded 24 people in a pedestrian mall in Tel Aviv. That bombing followed Israel’s killing of a senior Islamic militant in a targeted missile strike in the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, a Palestinian gunman opened fire with an automatic rifle on Jaffa Street only a few yards from the site of Sunday’s attack. The gunman killed two women and injured more than a dozen people before he was shot dead by police. Some shops had their windows shot out Tuesday and had just replaced the glass when it was shattered again.

In August, a suicide bomber killed 15 people in a Jaffa Street pizzeria just across the street from Sunday’s blast. Some workers at the Sbarro pizza restaurant were treated Sunday for shock, witnesses said.

Palestinian militants have carried out more than 30 suicide bombings during the current Mideast conflict, now 16 months old. On Friday, a bomber wounded two dozen people in an attack in Tel Aviv.

Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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